Finland will improve its space situational awareness by participating in EU SST activities
Space situational awareness refers to the aim of forming as real-time an overall picture as possible of the space use situation. This can be achieved by developing capabilities for monitoring objects and bodies in outer space and by seeking to monitor and predict phenomena in outer space weather. It is particularly important to try to predict any disruptions or hazards to people, the environment and property caused by the movement of objects and bodies in Earth's near space, space weather and the functioning of satellite systems.
In the EU, space situational awareness has been considered necessary as a capability especially to protect space activities and space infrastructure and citizens. The EU space surveillance function has been assigned to the EU SST space surveillance organisation (EU Space Surveillance & Tracking Consortium). The purpose of the EU SST Treaty arrangement is to intensify European space surveillance cooperation. The organisation monitors and supervises the movement and orbits of the bodies in outer space, predicts possible collisions and returns to Earth. Finland joined the EU SST Agreement arrangement in November 2022, and since then the Finnish Meteorological Institute has been Finland's primary contact with the EU SST.
Joining the EU STT was an important first step for Finland in building a national space situation awareness service. In addition, joining the monitoring organisation will open up opportunities for Finnish commercial operators to participate in the planning and construction of the European SST system.
Through its own portal, the EU STT publishes invitations to tender to which Finnish companies can submit tenders either independently or as part of a larger consortium. Together with the European Commission, the EU SST maintains an innovation forum for commercial operators (European Union Industry and Start-ups Forum on STM, EISF), which includes companies from more than 70 countries.
EISF survey 2024
In October 2024, EISF published a survey in which the consortium collects the views of commercial actors on the division of labour between the public and private sectors and ideas related to the SST theme on research and development projects supported with funding from Horizon Europe. The inquiry must be answered by 30 October.
The accompanying letter of the inquiry (in English) and the inquiry itself can be downloaded (docx) here. You can send the inquiry to DEFIS-EUSST-INDUSTRYFORUM(at)ec.europa.eu
Source: Finnish Meteorological Institute
